


And the light in her eyes danced like dragonfire

by coffeelings



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depressing, F/M, Gendry is a Baratheon, I don't count words, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda, Quadruple Drabble, Reminiscing, S8E4, Sad, anyway I'm heartbroken, sorta idk, the opposite of a Fix It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 01:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeelings/pseuds/coffeelings
Summary: Perhaps he was a fool to think her world would stop turning for the benefit of his.Interpretation of the events of S8E4 and an exploration of Gendry's angst/heartbreak.





	And the light in her eyes danced like dragonfire

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really upset but I know (in the context of how D&D are doing these characters now, I guess) this is preeeeeetty much how these characters would act and I just... needed to make something heartbreaking.

 

There was light in her eyes that night when she climbed upon him, watched him watching her, kissed him again. 

 _I ought to know what it's like before that happens,_ she said. Her eyes had searched him and found him ready to give himself over willingly. She was no longer a girl, rather a woman, a force of nature. Where else would he rather spend the final moments of his life? He'd kissed her shoulder, then her breast, and the sound of her breath quickening at his touch was music.

 _Gendry_ she had said, her voice pleading. She traced lines along his spine as he made love to her, and he kissed her as she placed her hands on his neck, and he made sure he would remember every inch of her before they met their ends. 

_Could she know what it meant? Would he tell her? Would he get the chance?_

* * *

 

There was light in her eyes after the battle as she stood with a blade in her hand and blood on her face, the survivors of the Great War quickly learning what she had done. Arya said nothing as Lady Sansa had pushed past them all to throw arms around her sister, and she had embraced her sister without hesitation. Gendry watched her for a time where she stood wordlessly in the Godswood as, one by one, the others moved to sort the newly dead from the old.

He wanted to lift her off her feet right then and there. He settled instead for wood for the funeral pyres.

* * *

There was light in her eyes when he found her. It had taken him some time, for the Hound gave him no answers, and the feast was crowded, and he'd had three full cups of wine in him. Arya had learned the art of slipping away, becoming a shadow with footsteps softer than the stillest night. How else could she have fooled the bringer of winter to end the Long Night before the wights tore them all down into their ranks? 

Gendry wished she would tell him where she'd been, where she wanted to go. He wished she would open herself like a book and teach him to read. 

 _Celebrating_ , she'd called it, archery practice in the belly of Winterfell while the others sang and drank their sorrows away. If her arrow had killed him, Gendry thought, it wouldn't have been the worst way to die. 

* * *

 

There was light in her eyes when he told her. A lord,  _him,_ of Storm's End, no less! Gendry  _Waters_ now Gendry  _Baratheon_ , legitimized by the Dragon Queen herself at the feast. The title and the wine emboldened him, begged him to tell her the truth that surged through his veins. It had always been there. Different, perhaps, when she was still a girl and his only instinct was to protect her, to make sure he would not drag her down with the other commonfolk so that she would reach her full potential, a Lady of Winterfell, a woman of consequence. 

 _I hardly know how to use a fork,_ he'd frantically explained after he’d kissed her full on the mouth, watching as the corners of her lips turned up.  _A smile, good_ , he thought, his raw desires bursting forth from him.   

 _All I know is that you're beautiful-_  because she was, inside and out, and he wanted her to hear it. The light brightened.  

 _And I love you-_  the light shone like a star. He could have sworn her heart was about to beat out of her chest, the way she was looking at him. 

 _And none of it will be worth anything if you're not with me-_ the light danced for him like dragonfire on a gray sky. 

 _So be with me, be my wife, be the Lady of Storm's End-_ the light flickered as Gendry bent down on his knee, uncertain how he'd gotten there but certain it was the right thing, the only thing. She was silent as she knelt down with him and held his neck like she'd done not so long ago, bringing his lips to hers. He thought for a moment she had accepted his proposal, and kissed her back with all of himself. Gently, she brought them to their feet before kissing him once more, softly, slowly, as if to bid him good night. 

When he pulled away and looked into her eyes, the light twinkled one last time, then disappeared. 

* * *

 

There was a light in her eyes and he’d put it out. 

 _I could be your family,_ she once told him. He'd rejected her then. Gendry wondered where he would be now if he'd accepted, forgotten about Lords and Ladies and the rest of them and followed her home. 

She would never be a Lady. She would never be  _his_ Lady wife. She would never be  _his._

 _That's not me,_ she said. She suggested he'd do well as a Lord, that any Lady would be lucky to have him, whoever she was.

But not her. 

_Not her._

The words twisted in his gut like a knife. He did not let her see his face as he finally left her to her target practice and stumbled away into darkness. Perhaps he should have known, known not to let his emotions bubble up and boil over the edges of him like this, known not to indulge to the point of confession, known that something in her had changed. Perhaps he was a fool to think her world would stop turning for the benefit of his. Perhaps Arya Stark of Winterfell had died in the Great War, and the woman before him had simply been a shadow.

He couldn't think. He cursed himself. His face was numb as it had been the night north of the Wall, when he ran so hard he'd collapsed into the snow. In that moment he wished there were wights still lurking, so he could take up his axe and smash them back into ashes until the rest of him was numb, too. 

* * *

 

"Lord Baratheon," a voice came from beside him. He'd returned to the feast and found a spot that allowed him to stare into a blazing fire, taking swigs of wine from a forgotten goblet. Things were dying down by that time, though groups of men and women still laughed and hooted around him. 

"What? Oh... oh yeah," he said, remembering his new name. He glanced over at the young woman who had spoken. Her sandy hair lay in an attractive plait that fell down her back, and her brown eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. 

"What an honor," she continued. "To be in the presence of such a fighter, now the Lord of Storm's End." 

"Yeah," Gendry croaked, smiling weakly at her. 

"Seems milord should celebrate tonight, not find himself alone at a feast," she inched close to him so her lips sat beside his ear. "Nor alone in his bed." 

Gendry sighed and looked into his empty goblet. 

"No, I suppose not," he finally said. She took his hand and led him somewhere in Winterfell, to a soft bed, and soon the woman whose name he did not know was kissing his neck, and it wasn't _her_ but it was human touch, which was _something_. He tried, twice, to lay with her, but his head was spinning, and it quickly became clear he couldn't physically do it even if he wanted to.

Eventually, Gendry mumbled an apology and left the room, the woman staring daggers at him as he unceremoniously laced his breeches. He walked for a time through hallways and open doors until cool night air in the castle courtyard hit his face. 

 _What's a Lordship without a Lady - the_  only _Lady who knew him_? _What use is a title without family, to defend, to love without question, to follow to the ends of the earth?_

He collapsed into a pile of hay. For a moment he'd been so sure of who he was and where he belonged at last, after a lifetime of standing alone. The lie had crumbled before him as quickly as he'd built it up. He willed his mind back to the night before the end of the world, back to the light in her eyes, until sleep mercifully took him at last. 

 

 


End file.
